Dual Sensors Monitor Valves

The Austrian plant manufacturer, GAW Technologies, is known worldwide for its reprocessing plants for chemicals and coating colors for the paper and cardboard industry. To monitor the status of their innumerable valves efficiently and reliable, the company relies on dual sensors from Turck.

For more than 60 years, the name GAW stands for capacity and quality in industrial plant manufacturing. The family enterprise, based in Graz in Austria, is the center of the international operating group of companies – GAW Group – whose activities concentrate on four different business areas: paper and cardboard, automobile, chemical and environmental technologies. The GAW group offers procedural solutions for all of those areas, beginning with research and development, consulting, engineering and manufacturing, to logistics, construction and start-up, to training and after sales service. All the solutions are customized.

In1951, Erhard Pildner-Steinburg founded GAW (Grazer Armaturen Werke) as an individual enterprise for the production of special valves. It quickly developed into a worldwide market leader for procedural plants. Today, the focal point is the development and construction of coating color machines and reprocessing plants for chemicals for the paper and cardboard industry. With 130 employees, the company has a transaction volume of 35 million Euro. While the Austrian paper and pulp industry was in the foreground in the early years, the market slowly relocated to Asia. These days, the family enterprise (the Voith-group holds a share of one-third of the business) makes 80 to 85 percent of its deals in China. India and Korea also rank among the most important markets.

Innumerable valvesIn the reprocessing plants, fresh water, waste water and chemicals that are needed for the coating color and other machines are processed. Therefore, the plants need a large amount of pneumatic and manual shut-off valves and ball valves. For a smooth manufacturing process, it is necessary to receive as many status reports about every single valve as possible. In 2003, GAW was looking for an economic and secure solution for the final surveillance of their instruments. Turck was the answer for the pneumatic valves.

Usually position feedback is handled by sensors in expensive and complex individual cases. Turck uses a dual sensor instead that easily attaches to the top of the power unit. ”The dual sensor by Turck meets our requirements perfectly“, explains the purchasing manager of GAW, Josef Eder, who has also worked in project management for GAW. ”Especially the integrated terminal chamber of the sensor and the simple construction were the reasons why we chose the products of Turck. They have a lot of well thought-out details like removable terminal blocks and the connection for electromagnetic valves.“

The terminal chamber allowed GAW to reduce the amount of device types, resulting in less complicated purchasing and storage. Furthermore, the sensors are easier and faster to install, compared with models that need a fix wiring. The customers of GAW benefit as well, because the regular maintenance of the engines is much faster and more secure with the removable terminal blocks. Without the terminal block, every single lead needs to be disconnected and reattached. That takes a long time and easily leads to errors.

This is not the situation with sensors from Turck. The single connections stay fixed and the opening of the terminal chamber separates the terminal block from the electronics. A protective cover guarantees that the electrical connections are re-established again by simply closing the case. Next to the status reports of pneumatic actuators, GAW uses sensors from Turck also for other applications. Several hundred two-way sensors operate at the GAW plants.

Competitive factor: Proximity to customersThe product characteristics are not the only reason why the Austrian plant manufacturer relies on the dual sensors from Turck. Explains Eder, ”The spare parts distribution is easy, as well because Turck's products are available worldwide. The company always has reacted fast and straightforward to our special wishes and requirements, like with DC-two-wire-electronic or special actuating elements (puck) that can be used for both directions of the drive. We got to know Turck as a reliable partner that supports the optimization of our plants actively. Therefore, we will choose Turck as our supplier for future times as well.“